


A Second Look, A Life Saved

by deepseaCritter



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, bloody wounds, clone swearing, first meeting on the battlefield, oc clone chooses his name after tragedy, somewhat graphic crash scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 23:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13845165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepseaCritter/pseuds/deepseaCritter
Summary: Jacek sends Caldera and Rift to investigate a crash. Caldera makes a crucial discovery, and saves a life. His decision will definitely matter in the future...but for now, here's how Caldera and Crater met.





	A Second Look, A Life Saved

Jacek watched silently as the LAAT gunship went down as it burst into flames, and felt a tremor as it made impact with the planet’s surface. A whole platoon of vode lost, but he couldn’t spend too much time thinking about it. Brothers were dying all around them, across different planets, in various systems. They were made to fight and die, some just got to the dying part a lot faster than others. Now he focused on having yet another job to do: get to the wreck, find the usable ordnance, and dispose of the things that can’t be fully salvaged before enemy forces can get their metallic mitts on it all.

The sergeant paused, considering his options. Normally they’d go as a squad, but they were spread too thin at the moment. “Caldera! Take Rift, search that lartie. Signal when you’re ready for pickup.”

The two clones Jacek had called out responded with an affirmative, and quickly headed towards the crash site.

***

Rift stared at the wreckage at the bottom of the impact site. “Think anything’s left? Looks like it went down pretty hard judging by the size of this crater.”

“Never know. I’m hoping there’s something still useful down there. Although…yeah, it does look pretty bad. Well, guess we better get moving, vod.” Caldera began his decent to the wreck, Rift following closely behind, careful to avoid jagged pieces of durasteel embedded into the earth…trying to ignore the random remnants of broken white armor along the way.

Once they reached the gunship, the troopers split up to search for weapons and ordnance that might have survived the crash. Caldera checked the usual spots, but found nothing that could still be remotely functional. Scans indicated there had been no ordnance aboard aside from a few thermal detonators, but those were gone. Even the blasters were too twisted and broken to take back. There would be nothing here, and experience told him they didn’t have to bother scanning for any survivors, not at this site.

“Caldera…I’m not finding anything here…” Rift’s voice crackled in his helmet. 

“Copy that, Rift. I’m not having much luck either.”

“I’m going to make another pass around, see if there’s _anything_ I might have missed.”

Caldera shook his head as he picked up a piece of a scorched kama, and stared at the bodies scattered around him. No, they would find nothing here. _So many lost…so many of us. And for what?_

Dropping the kama, he started making his way to Rift. He stepped over several bodies, some too torn up to even really recognize as former vode. The last one wasn’t in in horrible shape…armor still mostly on, but colored a dark red from copious amounts of drying blood _. Looks like he made long enough to bleed out. What a karking way to go._

“Cladera, Rift…what’ve you got for me?” He stopped as his comm unit sparked to life, and went to respond when he heard an odd noise. He spun, raising his deecee and sweeping the scene, but there was no movement. It was probably just some of the wreckage settling deeper in the dirt. He lowered his weapon, hitting the open channel to Jacek.

“Nothing good, sergeant. Total loss. Nothing salvageable, no surv--…” There was pressure on his foot, and his voice cut off in a sharp gasp as he looked down, a bloodied arm reaching out to him from the ground. He dropped, grabbing at the hand on his foot. There was a weak squeeze on his hand.

“ _Kriffing hells!_ ” He slid over to the trooper’s side, and turned him over. A garbled choke greeted him, and he let out of string of curses.

“Caldera!” Rift and Jacek yelled simultaneously, hearing his exclamations. Rift came into view, sprinting around the wreck towards him.

“He’s alive! _He’s alive!_ Rift…he’s karking alive. We need a med evac _NOW_!”

“You’re…you’re serious. How? How did he survive that?” Rift was as shocked as he was.

“I don’t know, but if he doesn’t get help soon, he won’t….” That was not an option. He had seen too many of his brothers die recently, and he had to save this one. _Had to..._

Jacek’s voice broke in again, “Someone better tell me what’s going on down there.”

“Jacek, we have one survivor. Situation critical. We need a medical team, a medical rescue, here.”

The comm went silent for a good minute. They knew Jacek would try his best to get a team there to help, but that wasn’t a guarantee. Caldera at the damaged clone. “We’re going to get you out of here vod…I promise.”

He didn’t want to think about what might happen if Jacek wasn’t able to secure a med transport.

***

Twenty minutes had passed before Caldera heard the hum of a gunship approaching. Rift scaled up the crater wall to get a better look, and he returned visibly relieved.

“It’s ours. Probably the med team. I’ll brief them on the situation.” He put a hand on Caldera’s shoulder when the other clone didn’t respond. “It may be too late…I know you don’t want to hear that. At least he’s not alone right now.”

“He’s going to make it…”

Rift let out a deep breath, not wanting to argue. Caldera was a great ordnance specialist, but sometimes he had trouble accepting when something was a lost cause. They were likely wasting resources to get the obviously dying clone out, but that wasn’t his call to make. He met the med team just at the edge of the crater, and briefed them on the status of the casualty. He was blunt, and even told the medics he didn’t think the trooper would even make it back to the ship. They decided to take a chance anyway, since they had already made the trip to the site.   

It took another 20 minutes to retrieve the now completely unconscious clone from the crater, and load him onto the gunship. Rift and Caldera boarded with the med team, and made their way to the medical frigate. Caldera was silent the whole trip, and never let go of the injured clone’s hand until they docked in the hanger.

***

He woke with a start, panting and listening to his heart race. He covered his head in pain at the onslaught of bright lights and the sudden squawking of medical monitors surrounding him. He felt a hand on his arm, reassuring.

“Hey, take it easy. Calm down, vod. You’re safe.”

He heard the voice but couldn’t see where it was coming from. _Where…?_

“We found you at the bottom of a karking crater. Most of the medics didn’t think you’d make it…but you sure proved them wrong.”

Crater? Crater… _crash_! “We took a hit! We were going down. My brothers…batchers…how many made it back?”

His vision was clearing, as he adjusted to the light. He was in a medbay somewhere. The clone next to him wasn’t from his squad. He looked around, squinting. All the other beds were empty.

“How many made it?” He had a sinking feeling in his stomach as the other clone looked at him, a sad expression on his face.

“You were the only one. We found you bleeding out…managed to get you to safety. Everyone else was gone.”

 He fell back on the bed, and turned away from the trooper at his side, trying to hide the tears that were beginning to form. He lost everyone…

“I’m sorry vod. I…I’ll let you rest.” Another pat on the arm, and the clone got up and left the room.

***

The other trooper returned every few hours to check in. Sometimes he felt like talking to the trooper, most of the time he just laid there silent. He learned the other’s name was Caldera, and that he and his batcher Rift had found him just after the crash. No, it was just Caldera who found him. It was Caldera he had reached out in a bloody haze of patchy memories. Caldera who hard shouted for help. Caldera who had held him as he was dying…

“…didn’t see a name listed.”

“What?” He hadn’t realized Caldera was talking to him.

“Your name. I didn’t see a name listed for you. What’s your name? I figured I can’t just keep calling you vod, and I hate using our numbers.”

“Name? I…don’t…don’t remember…” He sat there for several minutes, shaking his head a few times as if that would help jog his memory. Did he have a name? He must have…but he couldn’t remember _at all_. It was frustrating, and the medical monitors began to sound alarms at his agitation.

“It’s ok…you’re ok.” Caldera sat on the bed, and drew him into a secure and reassuring embrace. “You’re good vod. The name isn’t important right now. If you can’t remember it, maybe we’ll just give you a new one. The important thing is that you rest, and heal up.”

Caldera let go and got up to leave. “I’ll be back to see you later. Get some sleep.”

He laid back in bed, but sleep was elusive. He stayed awake, trying desperately to remember what his batchers had called him…but his memory ultimately failed him.

***

They sat in their bunks in the 501st barracks. Caldera had convinced the sergeant to submit for a transfer since he had lost his squad (and turns out most of his company) in the last campaign. He had pretty much been welcomed with open arms by all of them, but there was one thing that bothered him…

“Caldera, I can’t remember it. I just can’t.” For two weeks now, he had been trying every day to remember his old name.

“I need a new name. It’s driving me crazy hearing my number all the time. I thought I had left that behind long ago when I shipped out from Kamino.”

Caldera had stuck with calling him vod, but Rift and the rest of the ordnance troopers used his number. Like Caldera, he hated it.

“I agree, vod. Any ideas?”

“I have one…”

Caldera leaned forward, listening attentively. “And that is?”

He was hesitant, but Caldera seemed genuinely interested. “Crater.”

“Crater?

“Yes, Crater. That…that’s where you found me. And it’s where I lost my batchers. So, I figured it’s a way for me to remember them. It’s the best I could come up with.”

“Crater.” Caldera nodded and smiled as he said the name. “I like it. Fitting remembrance, and it somehow…suits you.”

Crater looked at the trooper sitting across from him. Caldera was genuine with his appraisal of Crater’s name choice. Hells, Caldera was always honest with his thoughts and emotions around Crater. It was at that moment he realized if there was one vod he could count on to be there for him, it was Caldera. He smiled back, completely happy to be where he was for the first time in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> All my OCs. Crater was a clone I honestly dreamed about. Short story: I dreamed there was a clone that got blown up, and all that was left was a crater. So the clone was posthumously named Crater (also in my dream). A discord chat with MissTeaVee convinced me to change his story, so that he was in a crash, but didn't die, and could then meet my OC Caldera. Yes, they will eventually be in a relationship...but that's not part of this chapter. So no clone|clone stuff right now.  
> And just because I wanted to, I tagged clone swearing. Karking deal with it.


End file.
